


Tumbling Down

by KeriArentikai



Series: Oh, The Places We'll Go [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Grad Student AU, M/M, Mild Somnophilia, No Werewolves, Oral Sex, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeriArentikai/pseuds/KeriArentikai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles gets home later that morning, Lydia is sitting at the kitchen table, reading an article.  Without looking up, she asks: "How was your night with Hale?"</p><p>Stiles almost tells her it was good until he realizes what she just said, then he stops and stares.</p><p>"What?  I have no idea what you're talking about."  He knows he's not very convincing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumbling Down

**Author's Note:**

> It happened again. More porn rather that real work. Oops. This is why **I** will not have tenure by 34, like my fantasy Derek.
> 
> Not sure what I think about this one. As usual, written in haste. Hope the vaguely kinky sex isn't putting anyone off and isn't absurd - I'll admit I usually have very little to do with penises in real life. And I don't think this is quite the end, but I'm not sure I can picture more than one more installment.
> 
> Oh, and while there's a fair bit of alcohol in here, I wouldn't call it alcohol abuse. Instead, I call it real life, especially in academia.

Stiles wakes up feeling warm and comfortable and very turned on. He'd been having a great dream, he can't remember about what, but whatever had been going on in his dream was clearly not as awesome as waking up to Derek Hale blowing him. 

He's extremely hard and Derek is really into it, with a hand stroking the base of Stiles' cock and his mouth moving up and down the shaft, and Stiles is already close, way closer than he ought to be. Stiles knows he's a really heavy sleeper and he wonders how long Derek had been sucking on his cock before Stiles woke up, where on his body Derek's mouth and hands might have been when he was still unconscious, and that thought pushes him over the edge.

***

When Stiles gets home later that morning, Lydia is sitting at the kitchen table, reading an article. Without looking up, she asks: "How was your night with Hale?"

Stiles almost tells her it was good until he realizes what she just said, then he stops and stares.

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about." He knows he's not very convincing. Lydia just looks at him.

"Fine, how did you know? It was that time you saw me on the third floor, wasn't it."

"Yes, I put it together from all the little clues you left." Lydia rolls her eyes. "No, dumbass, you left your phone on my desk yesterday and when he texted to confirm your plans it showed on the screen. If you're actually trying to keep a secret, don't program him into your phone as 'Derek'."

"Oh. Oops." He sits down at the table across from her. "You didn't tell anyone, did you? Please don't tell anyone."

"I didn't. But what's with all the secrecy? You're not his student."

"No, but you are. What's he supposed to do, come out and get drunk with us?"

"Professor Yates does," Lydia replies.

"Professor Yates is a weird old lech who is totally inappropriate with his students and we all know it."

"Fine," Lydia shrugs. "How long has this been going on?"

It hits Stiles for the first time that, even though he's unhappy Lydia found out, he actually has someone to talk to about it. And he is so thankful.

"A week and a half, something like that. But it's... I don't know." Lydia waits. "It's really intense. He's really intense."

"In a good way?"

"Mostly in a really good way. Probably in some not-so-good ways, too. I just mean, I don't think this is how relationships are supposed to start."

"There's no such thing as 'supposed to' in relationships. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, that's just it! Okay, that sounded really dumb. But I'm not supposed to be even thinking about words like 'forever' after a week and a half. And... he has some history." At her raised eyebrow, he says: "No, I'm not going to tell you."

Lydia moves to the tea kettle and pours another cup for herself and a new one for Stiles.

"Is he also getting serious about you so quickly?"

"I'm not sure. I think maybe?"

"Just be careful. He's older. He might want different things, and he has more experience than you." Stiles thinks, no he doesn't. But then he wonders what exactly Derek meant by 'relationship' and what he's been doing for the last fourteen years and if this thing between him and Derek - this brief, intense interaction - is something he does often.

"I don't know how to be careful. I'm not good at careful. And the secrecy stuff... Once the department finds out, there's no going back, you know? There'd be no more room to figure things out between us. It would just end up being what everyone else decided it was until we couldn't do it anymore and then it would be a huge public breakup and everyone would be talking about it and I could never show my face in seminar again..."

"Stop," Lydia cuts him off. "You're being ridiculous."

Stiles puts his head down on the table.

***

A few hours later, when he's stopped freaking out, he texts Derek: _Lydia figured it out. I'm sorry. I didn't tell her, I promise._

His phone rings a few seconds later.

"You know, we're not actually breaking any rules," Derek says.

"I know. I looked it up," Stiles replies. "But just because we won't get in trouble doesn't mean we should want everyone to know."

"I guess that's true."

"She said she wouldn't tell anyone else. And I'm sure she won't treat you differently in class or anything. And I won't tell her anything personal about you."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Stiles can hear Derek sigh on the other end of the line. They've never really talked on the phone before. 

"Don't worry about it, Stiles," Derek tells him. But Stiles is going to worry anyway.

***

Stiles has his final Catullus paper due on Tuesday, so he doesn't see Derek again that weekend. He thinks he could have made the time for Derek (with difficulty), but he wants a bit of space to think. Normal week-and-a-half long relationships don't involve seeing each other every day, he's pretty sure. And he wants to think a bit about what's going on. Whether he thinks Derek is as into it as he is, whether he's repeating that whole totally-caught-up-in-it thing that he did with Kate. Whether Stiles is crazy to be getting serious about a relationship with a guy who has tenure, who is a grown-up, who maybe wants kids soon - oh my god, does Derek want kids soon?

But they text, and whenever he sees he has a text from Derek he smiles, a fact which Lydia points out to him. What he told Lydia is true - he's bad at being careful. Maybe he needs to just accept the fact that he's not being careful with his heart and that if he doesn't try it with Derek for real, he's going to regret it. And maybe Derek won't fall in love with him, and maybe Derek'll let his issues get in the way, but maybe he'll make Stiles happy. The only way to know for sure is to try.

***

The next time he sees Derek is at the department 'holiday' party Tuesday afternoon. They stopped having an open bar a few years ago (the stories Stiles had been told about the incident that precipitated this change were awesome and scandalous) so it's only bad hors d'oeuvres and a couple of hours of uncomfortable mingling.

He sees Derek, but he's not sure Derek sees him. In fact, Derek doesn't even look at him once the whole time, not that Stiles was able to notice. Instead, Derek is busy talking to Danny. Danny had had one seminar with Derek last year, but he's done with his classes and Derek's not on his committee, so Stiles isn't sure exactly what they're talking about with such animation.

Whatever it is, it must be great, because they're talking almost the whole time and Danny is seriously flirting with him. Smiles, arm-touches, the whole shebang. Stiles is pretty sure he would have noticed the situation even if he wasn't currently pretty fixated on Derek. Lydia had definitely noticed. She kept shooting Stiles dubious looks, as if she wasn't impressed with Derek's conduct.

Because while Derek is clearly the flirtee rather than the flirter, he doesn't look unhappy about it. He's not moving away, he's smiling back. And Stiles even hears his laugh from across the room once or twice. Stiles stays as long as he think he has to, then grabs his coat and leaves behind Lydia looking sympathetic and Scott wondering why he's in a mood.

He's supposed to go over to Derek's in a few hours, he figures he'll be calmer by then.

***

He's not angry at Derek, not exactly. Maybe a little irritated. They're doing the whole secret thing and he knows that comes with ignoring each other in public, and maybe that's not pleasant, but he can deal with it. And it's not like he thinks Derek's cheating on him with Danny or that he's planning to. He just thinks that it's common courtesy not to flirt a whole lot when your... whatever they are... is in the room, because it sucks to watch.

When Derek answers the door, he isn't smiling. They make some sort of awkward small-talk until Stiles finally just asks him if everything's okay.

"I should be asking you that, after you stormed out of the department party today," Derek says, and he looks annoyed.

"What? I didn't storm out. I left at an appropriate time. I just wasn't really enjoying myself, watching Danny flirting his little heart out." Stiles tries to keep his tone light, even. He really isn't mad at Derek about it, he reminds himself, and it's true.

"You're the one that wants to keep this all a secret! What was I supposed to do?" Derek, however, apparently is kind of mad.

"Wait, I thought we **both** wanted to keep it a secret. Since when am I the only one?"

"Maybe we just shouldn't do this," Derek says, and sits down on the couch.

Stiles feels a sense of dread creep up his spine.

"You mean the secrecy part?"

"No, I mean the whole thing." Derek is resting his elbows on his knees and is holding his head in his hands. He looks pathetic. And he doesn't look up at Stiles.

"Wow, really? That's your reaction?" Stiles knows his words have grown sharp but he can't help it.

Derek doesn't answer. Stiles tries to breathe in and out, in and out. He tries to figure out what the mature way to handle this situation is.

"Okay, well, I still want to do it. And I'm not talking about the secret thing. We can talk about that. But I," he takes a deep breath, tries to be brave, "want to be with you."

Derek still doesn't answer. There's nothing else that Stiles can say.

"When you figure out what you want, let me know," he says, and he says it softly and sincerely. Then he leaves, and calls Lydia, and gets black-out drunk on his couch.

***

He wants to die, but Stiles makes it to his 10 am class (he stopped throwing up at 8 - plenty of time to shower and get ready). He doesn't remember getting into bed the night before, but he does remember wondering whose house Allison was staying at while Lydia listened to his story and his frustration and poured him more drinks. 

Before he got irrationally drunk, Lydia gave him some advice. He's scared too, she had said. He cares. Stiles hopes Lydia is right but he's not sure. 

He really hopes he doesn't look as awful as he feels when he meets Scott and Jackson for lunch, but Jackson's "what the fuck happened to you?" tells him that he looks exactly as bad as he feels. Today his binge seems like an overreaction, but it felt so good to let everything loose for a while - he'd been tied up in knots for two weeks.

Stiles puts them off with a story about a drinking game with Lydia that got out of hand and, while Jackson seems to buy it, Scott grabs him on the walk back to the office and tells him he's there if Stiles wants to talk. Stiles hugs him and says thank you, but thinks that there isn't anything to talk about anymore.

That afternoon, he sees Derek walking down the path from the window of his office. He looks fine.

By Thursday, he's reframed the narrative entirely. This is no longer a fairy-tale story of boy-meets-boy, boys-fall-in-love, boys-live-happily-ever-after. Now it's a cautionary tale of caring too much too quickly and choosing inappropriate men. When he looks back over everything that happened, he's no longer surprised that it's over. He's sad, but he tells himself firmly that he can't be actually heartbroken over something so ephemeral, and it's mostly true.

***

On Friday night, when he's out with his friends celebrating the last day of classes and living his life like nothing has changed, he gets a text.

_can i talk to you_

Which is... weird. Derek always capitalizes and punctuates correctly - they're historians, for heaven's sakes. Stiles wonders if Derek is drunk and whether it's wise to reply if that's the case. But really, what else can he screw up at this point?

 _Okay. Where/when?_ he sends back.

 _if i say now, does that make me an aasshole?_ This makes Stiles smile.

Lydia notices the smile and looks at him sharply. He shrugs helplessly to convey that he can't stop himself, and Lydia glares to tell him to watch it.

 _Maybe it does. But ok. Your house?_

Maybe this isn't wise. But maybe it'll be closure. Or maybe Derek is over whatever's been going on this week. And Stiles isn't sure if that means things will be okay, but it's a start.

When he gets ready to leave and it's only 11 pm, he gets a disapproving look from Lydia and one from Scott, too. Scott has had a few drinks already. He has an arm around Isaac who looks only mildly uncomfortable. And Scott says, loudly, to the whole table:

"Whoever it is that you're fucking had better be worth it." 

No one looks surprised.

Stiles nods and leaves.

***

Stiles discovers that he was right, Derek has been drinking. He can see the mostly-empty bottle of scotch on the coffee table with only one glass next to it. But he's not fucked up or anything - apparently with Derek, texting skills are one of the first things to go. Stiles thinks that, even if they never see each other again, he'll know that about Derek.

"Laura yelled at me and told me I had to talk to you." He picks up his glass and takes a sip. "Want any?" Stiles hates scotch, so he shakes his head no.

"So the only reason I'm here is because of what your sister wants?"

"No, of course not. That wasn't what I meant." Derek sits down on the couch and motions for Stiles to join him, but Stiles isn't ready to sit down just yet.

"Look, I'm... I'm sorry."

Stiles had imagined Derek saying that to him, but it took him until Thursday to think up his response.

"For what?" Really, Stiles had decided, there was no reason for Derek to be sorry about ending something that had barely begun, if it wasn't working for him.

"For flirting with Danny." Now that's a response Stiles hadn't expected, and he sits down abruptly.

"Flirting with... What?" Stiles tries to understand how this connects. "That's what you wanted to talk to me about?"

Now Derek looks just as confused as Stiles, looks like he was just told he wrote down the wrong answer on a test.

"You were upset about it," Derek tells him.

"Well, okay, a little, but in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter."

"Oh." There's some silence. When Derek doesn't say anything further, Stiles tries again to understand.

"You don't want to be with me because you think I'm jealous?"

"What? No! I'm just... I'm really bad at this. I do stupid shit like flirt with other guys because I thought it was what you wanted and then I yelled at you about it. There's a reason I don't do relationships. I'm just not made for them. I'm sorry." Derek looks like he really is sorry, Stiles thinks, and like he doesn't like himself very much.

Stiles puts his head in his hands and groans. "Derek, you give me a headache."

"I'm sor-" Stiles raises his head and glares at him.

"If you apologize for that I'm going to smack you." Derek closes his mouth. Stiles remembers he has no idea what Derek's horrible marriage was like, and stammers: "You know I wasn't actually threatening to hit you, right?"

Derek rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I know. You don't exactly scare me." Stiles thinks about what Lydia said, and wonders if that's really true.

"Derek, the only thing you did that upset me was say that we shouldn't see each other. Everything else we could have just talked about, and it would have been fine." Stiles wonders if it's right to try to convince Derek to be with him, when Derek obviously doesn't want to - even if it's for crazy-pants reasons rather than 'I don't like you like that' reasons.

Derek slumps back against the sofa and groans. 

"Just... tell me what you actually want here," begs Stiles.

"Well, the best option would be for us to live happily ever after. Second best would be to not get together at all. What I don't want is for us to fuck each other up and have a messy breakup." 

Stiles can't help but laugh. "I'm with you, man."

There's some silence, before Stiles has to fill up the space with words.

"It's not like I'm not nervous about that, too. This whole thing with you and me is pretty different from what I'm used to."

"How?" Derek asks. 

Stiles starts to answer and then realizes that he's probably kind of drunk, too. Stiles can text like a pro when he's drinking, but his first tell is excessive truthfulness. So he asks: "Are you sure you want the honest answer? It might not make this any easier." Derek thinks, then nods.

"Because I already like you a lot. Like, a whole lot. And between that and your age and the whole high-pressure secret thing, well, this feels like it's serious. More serious than most of my relationships have been, even the long ones." And it's stupid but it's true, he thinks. He remembers breaking up with Isabelle and Chad, and getting dumped by Justin, and discovering that his crush on Lydia was a bust, and none of them were as bad as the last few days have been. The whole Derek thing hasn't gotten quite as bad as the break-up with Brittany, but had been together for over a year. 

"I just mean, there would be a lot of eggs in this basket. Very delicate, breakable eggs. Probably delicious eggs, sure. And you'd be waving the basket around with your big, muscular arms."

Derek snorts. "Great metaphor." Stiles grins and pokes him in the ribs.

"Shut up. You make a better metaphor that still involves a compliment to your physique." It feels like the tension dissipated a little with the easy exchange. Derek must think so too, because he asks softly:

"So why were you freaking out so much when Lydia found out?"

"Because I was worried about you. I mean, I'd like nothing better than to introduce you around as my boyfriend," whoops, Stiles thinks, we hadn't been using that word. Oh well. At this point there's nothing he can do except pretend that it wasn't a slip. "But I know you need a professional relationship with them, and you probably don't want a bunch of kids in your class to know anything about your sex life."

"That's true," replied Derek. "But there's no way that it wouldn't have to be public knowledge at some point or another, if we stayed together. Didn't you ever think about that? Keeping whatever we were doing a secret keeps it a temporary situation."

"I never meant it like that. And it's not like you really talked about your intentions towards me, whether you wanted it to be a long-term thing."

"Intentions?" Derek smirks. "Was I supposed to send a card to your father asking permission to court you?"

"You didn't?!" Stiles tries his best to look horror-struck, before they're both laughing. 

"So, what's the verdict?" Stiles asks, and he thinks he and Derek are finally on the same page, but at this point he's not taking any chances.

Derek leans towards him and cups the side of his face with his hand. Stiles can taste the smoke of the scotch on his lips when Derek kisses him. 

"I don't care about people knowing or not. We can do whatever you want," Derek tells him, as he leans back in to kiss him again. "And my intentions towards you are totally honourable."

"God, I hope not. I really like the depraved parts of this relationship." 

Then Derek pushes him down on the couch and says, in a voice that sounds more like it belongs to confident Professor Hale than scared, wounded Derek: "That, at least, I can handle."

***

It's not long before Stiles is naked, bracing himself on the back of the couch with his forearms, his head dropped forward, and Derek, still fully dressed, is coming back from the bedroom with, Stiles can only assume, lube and a condom. 

"Spread your legs," Derek orders. Stiles obeys and is rewarded by Derek's hand reaching between his legs to stroke his already-hard cock. They've barely done anything so far, but he hasn't had Derek's hands on him for a week and he'd been too busy and then too bummed out to get himself off. And being told to stay there, bent over and exposed, while Derek did whatever he needed to do was just so unbearably hot.

Good sex has never been so easy before. Usually there's a lot of communication involved, discussions of limits and negotiations if his partner is worried, and Stiles has sometimes felt like getting exactly what he wants sexually is more trouble than its worth. But mediocre sex is still sex, so he's gone with it. But it's different with Derek. Stiles wonders if it's because his kinks and Derek's kinks are perfectly matched, like puzzle pieces slotting together, or if Derek has a magical ability to tell what people want in bed, if he's this good with everyone. He secretly hopes it's the former, hopes that Derek thinks sex with Stiles is better than with anyone else, the way Stiles does.

He stops thinking when Derek's other hand, the one that isn't still teasingly stroking and touching his dick with no discernable pattern or rhythm, presses between his cheeks, spreading him apart. The hand retreats and then, before he can even register the pressure at his rim, Derek's finger is all the way in him, slick but sudden. He gasps and he can feel Derek smearing the precome beading at the tip of his dick around the head. 

"Derek," he moans, as another finger enters him, too soon for comfort but at exactly the right time for maximum sensation. "Oh god, your fingers." Derek apparently takes his as his cue that Stiles wouldn't mind some dirty talk, which is completely true.

"Do you like me fucking you with my fingers? You look so beautiful, bent over for me, your ass in the air." His fingers are now pressing back and forth against a fantastic spot, and Stiles can barely groan out:

"Yes, oh yes, I love it!"

"I bet you want my cock even more, don't you. You'd beg me for it. I bet I could slam my cock into your ass dry and you wouldn't even say no." Derek presses his still-clothed cock against Stiles' thigh, as if to bolster his threat. And what Derek said is true, and Stiles knows he'd be an idiot if he let Derek do it because it would almost certainly hurt a hell of a lot, but right now he'd let Derek do anything to him. He doesn't think Derek's going to, he can't, really - there's already lube in him from Derek's fingers, but he feels a frisson of fear anyway and there's more precome dripping out of him and he wonders if he's even going to be able to wait until Derek's fucking him to come. 

Both hands leave him, then he hears a zipper and a rustle and a ripping. Then one of Derek's hands is on his hip and the other is on his upper back, holding him in place, holding him down, as Derek presses into him and Stiles squirms, and he's not sure if he's trying to get away or if he's trying to get closer. But it doesn't matter, because he can't move, and Derek's thrusts are so powerful that he's up on tiptoes and his only solid points of connection with the world are the couch in front of him and Derek's strong body behind him. 

"Jack yourself," Derek growls, and Stiles rushes to comply. "Want you to come while I'm filling you up..." And the hand leaves his hip and starts touching him where their bodies are joined, tracing around the stretched edge of his asshole where Derek's cock is rubbing in and out and in and out and Derek shouts and comes. Holy shit, Stiles thinks, this all wasn't just for me, this is what Derek wants too, and he's coming, spurting onto the fabric on the back of the couch.

And Derek is gentle when he pulls out and tells him they'll worry about the couch tomorrow, and when they make it to the bed they kiss softly as they curl up together and go to sleep.


End file.
